An NHS locum surgeon has been erased from the medical register after a botched emergency bowel procedure left a patient's organs connected incorrectly, creating a life-threatening condition.
Fatal errors during surgery
Dr Yasser Adly Abdel Rahman performed the operation on a young man at Royal Oldham Hospital on August 25, 2020. The Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service (MPTS) heard that due to his incompetence, the contents of the patient's bowels were deposited directly back into his stomach instead of travelling through the digestive system, creating a "closed loop" system so dangerous it could have killed him.
The patient was left in "uncontrollable pain" and was only saved after another surgeon corrected the error during an emergency second operation. Dr Rahman at no time considered that something may have gone wrong surgically, despite concerns raised by the patient's parents and other medics.
Expert testimony and consequences
A former consultant general and colorectal surgeon, acting as the General Medical Council's expert witness, said the procedure was "not known to man" and his error was "as bad as it gets." Dr Rahman, who qualified in 1993 from Ain Shams University in Cairo, Egypt, did not attend the hearing and was not legally represented.
He claimed he had been made a "scapegoat" and was the victim of a "witch hunt," denying responsibility for the operation. The MPTS imposed an order restricting his work in July 2021, but he breached the conditions by securing a locum job at Affidea Express Care Clinic in Ireland in February 2022. The tribunal ruled this breach was an "aggravating" feature to already "significant" errors.
The tribunal concluded last month that his misconduct was "fundamentally incompatible with continued registration" and erased him from the medical register.
